21st of March 2013

                  Here are two animations i have made for the current project.

                                            The Black square with chord

 

Found out how to fade audio in premiere pro. It was in the "effects bin" under "audio transitions"

 

 

The Black square reversal

 

 

When editting "the black square with chord" i realised that it might be interesting to reverse it.

Although the original idea becomes slightly lost i think its visually and audiobly more interesting.

I find "The Black square reversal" to be more interesting and engaging yet i find the idea behind "The Black Square with chord" to be more powerful so it comes down to which is more important.

 

 

Layering

 

This was just a quick drawing to help me get my head around layering.
Its like putting on a play and the various different backdrops.

The charachter of the piece doesnt have to be on the top layer.

 

 

 

20th of March 2013

Animation

I put music to the animation. I found that instead of playing the notes as the piece joined as originally planed that it worked best to play the notes as the piece broke apart.

Encountered a problem with spinning the squares as i wanted to both spin and fade in the square and once you have made a square a symbol that becomes problematic. Spinning the squares proved to look dreadful any way so i abandoned it after spending ages getting it together. The spinning seemed to take away from the animation.

A thought occurred to me while editing in the sounds to reverse the first 5 seconds of the animation which ended up looking and sounding a lot more interesting then what i had previously produced.
So i currently have to versions of the animation. One which reverses at half way and quickly finds its self going backwards and the other one that plays a chord in unison.

CCS

CCS Today was about symbolism. Little was said about symbolism itself lots said about the type of paintings produced by symbolists.
The second talk was on classical architecture. The panteon is amazing.

Finding Nemo

Watched Finding nemo for Darras class on Thursday. (Which turns out was re-organised to half 3 on wednesday). It had been years since i had last seen it. I am amazed at how fluidly the story flows. Scenes change effortlessly and seamlessly its scary. Every scene is involving. The music is highly emotional. Visually its stunning and storyline its powerful.

19th of march 2013

Patricia gave us a talk on the "11 fundamental principles" of animation.

1. Squash + Stretch
2.Timing + motion
3. Anticipation
4.Staging
5.Follow through in overlapping action
6. Straight ahead action + Pose to pose action
7. Slow in and out
8. Arcs
9. Exaggeration
10. Secondary Action
11. Appeal

Conor Horgan

After the talk we went on a trip to LIT to hear a talk by Conor Horgan. Apart from the comical technical difficulties the talk was great. It could have however used a break or too of 5 to 10 minutes as we were all wrecked by the end of it but with that said we were all glad to have gone.

Here is Conor Horgans Vimeo http://vimeo.com/conorhorgan
We saw extracts from his films "Happiness" "The Beholder" and "One Hundred Mornings" also we watched his short "The last time" and "Deep end dance". All of which were great my favourite being the extracts from "Happiness" and the short "Deep end dance".

Conor Horgan said "The purpose of advertising is to create suffering." Which i found rather spot on.

His tip for taking a persons photograph is to tell them to think of something that makes them happy.
He mention Dorothy Cross and her piece of a shark filled with gold .

Conor Horgans website

Animation

After the talk i came back to LSAD and got back to animating with flash. Up to 8 seconds now of the 10 second project leaving only 2 seconds for a chord to be played which is not really adequate to be honest. This was the plan from my storyboarding but now in hindsight i can see its not practical. I will probably speed up the 8 seconds so it becomes 6 seconds. Also the black seems to still be fading in to quickly tomorrow work on making that take longer.

14th of March 2013

We had a class in the morning introducing the various adobe programs such as " Photoshop / illustrator / after effects / flash / Premiere pro / audition ".

It came up that we might have a bit of easing time in our animation at the start and end for around 10/15 frames.

We must google "Sol Bas" and watch "Finding Nemo".

Talked to tutor about animation. He likes how it is simple and how i have thought it out. Said to me that if i want to make something 3d there is no problem and that it can be done in aftereffects. gave me  a quick demonstration.

I storyboarded my new idea. Now the idea is based off of fractals. Squares within squares.The colours of the animation shall still be based off of G major on guitar.

 

 

I story boarded two different scenarios one of it grow from the outside in and the other from the inside out. I prefer the outside in one as it reminds me of thought.

 

Came up with 3 different transition animation styles.

The black square at the start of the animation shall break into 4.

 Become lines and form a cube.

The 3rd transition is a bit swastika like.

 Which is perfect as in Hinduism the swastika is the symbol for the universe and creation.

 

 

 "The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good" or "auspicious," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix. The swastika literally means "to be good". Or another translation can be made: "swa" is "higher self", "asti" meaning "being", and "ka" as a suffix, so the translation can be interpreted as "being with higher self"." Quote from wikipedia  14th of march 17:18 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika .

I love the second translation ("being with higher self") as it goes so well with my idea. The piece its self shall be all the notes in a g chord ( 7th  note) played separately as the square continues to divide its self up. Spiralling downward almost as if looking inward consciously until it stops and comes to a realisation that it is all one,  at this point the g chord shall play and the piece shall all light up again and fade together and end as it began. The alpha and the omega. The division that occurred in the beginning shall be unified.

Went to 3 Gallery openings today Raggle taggle, Limerick printmakers and .....emmmm i will get back to you on the other one.
Raggle taggle = "Cat's Tales" by Carl Doran http://www.carldoran.com/
Limerick Printmakers =  "Pony Play"  by  Fiona Quill  http://fionaquill.com/

I absolutly loved the collages of the cats by Carl Doran

15th of March 2013

Started out the day making another storyboard when Paul told me to start animating.
Got like 3 seconds done as i was still only getting used to Flash. Encountered a problem with making a square on its side. Problem was solved by rotating and skewing it. The arrow is also helpful to just drag and drop the corners to the points.

March 13th 2013

Using layers i was able to create the desired effect of an elongating line. Also i was able to make it look as if colour was eminating for one place. I choose the chord to base the sound track off. The chord "G" that is as G is the first letter in god and im going for a alpha omega type senario. Thinking about basing the colour of the piece from Newtons colour theory. http://www.gootar.com/theory.htm
Then colours associated with g major in order are red, yellow, blue, red, yellow and red.

colour wheel that spirals out colored in parts are the notes used in a g Major chord. I took red as the base colour.
The pattern is 1,3,5,1,3,1, or red, yellow, blue, red, yellow, red, which in terms of notes is G,B,D,G,B,G

In ccs today we covered post impressionism focusing mainly on Paul cezanne, paul gaugin and vincent van gough. The second lecture then was on style.  (Broad concept/ Individual stylistic movements/ individual artists etc etc)

Later that night the idea came to me to base the movement off of the notes and there position on the guitar.

March 12th 2013

Made a story board. The pan is that the square becomes a line and then a cube and back to the original imagery. The plan is to incorporate sound and colour into the piece. I like the way we start and end with the same thing. The Alpha and the Omega.

When animating it in flash i came upon a problem with the shape tween . The black square become a line worked brilliantly however the line growing into a square is proofing difficult as i want it to extend and not all move as it is. Currently have two ideas to resolve the problem. One being that i could draw what i want it to look like and rub out the parts frame by frame. Two i could do "Shape tweens" on different layers. Number two sounds like the more attractive option.

 

I was also wondering if a stopmotion might suit the idea.

 

We had analytical drawing today with Roisin. We were drawing cassette holders. No detail only accuracy was to be taken into account.

First day of Animation & Motion Design

We recieved our brief. Entitled "The story of a square". The requirements are that the animation must be 10 seconds long and begin and end with a black cube in the center, a black cube "250 x 250" pixels. The screen canvas is 1920 x 1080. The animation should be filmed at 25fps.

My brainstorming and storyboarding so far.

I am drawn to fractual imagery. Colour and sound wise i am not sure yet.

Paul gave us a demonstration on how to use flash. We went through the basics (Open in Action Script 3, Modify 1920-1080, 25 fps etc..etc... ) Learned about frames and keyframes. Also the difference between a "shape tween" and a "motion tween".

Paul told me to check out "Isometric drawings" and "pixel art". I want to get some isometric paper now. Drawing spirals and swirls would become so much eassier with it.

Paul showed us briefly this animation technique of separating the background up into 3 layers. And scrolling the layers past the canvas at different speeds to produce the look of motion.